Jason Toon

Eh? Huh? What's that you say? Speak up, man! I CAN'T HEAR
YOU OVER ALL THIS NOISE!

It's no secret that the signal-to-noise ratio on our forums
is low. It's XFL-TV-ratings low. It’s Michael-Brown’s-credibility low. And that
makes all of us feel pretty low.

When forum anarchy reigns, we lose the wooters with engaging
and informative things to say. So sound
the alarm: the crackdown is here. Most of you have nothing to worry about. To
the rest: it all comes down to having some consideration for other people. This
is kindergarten stuff, right?

We've always had forum rules, but our laxity in enforcing
them has driven away some potentially valuable contributors while attracting
the hucksters and the free-iPodders and the "first post!" nimrods. We
want our forum to be a worthwhile stop in your online day, not a playpen for
the mentally immature. Herewith, the New Woot Order:

Posts
with links that the poster stands to profit from - through a referral
program, a commercial site that he or she owns or work for, a blog with
paid advertising, etc. - will be deleted as soon as we find it. This goes
for the body of posts as well as the post signature. If you want to show
our members a better deal on today's woot, please take your referral code
out of the link. Our forums are not a public billboard. You all don’t want
to scroll past all that stuff to get to the posts with real content.

Worthless
posts - "first page!", "I'm drunk", "warez teh
Bone of Contention!!!!!", etc. - will be deleted. Again, none of you want to sift
through all that mess.

We’re definitely
interested in hearing your comments and criticisms about the product and
price, positive or negative. Let it all out: we’re not interested in being
Big Brother. Substantive debate is the very lifeblood of our community.

We shouldn't
even have to remind anybody of this, but carpet-bombing the boards with
the same post in every thread (as in a recent case) is clearly forum
vandalism, whatever the motive. It’s a major irritation for anybody else
using the forums. Any forum member who does it will be banned.

Running
scripts to contact our members or post on the forum en masse is strictly
prohibited. Anyone found to be doing so will be banned. If applicable,
legal action will be taken.

Take a
moment to reacquaint yourself with our forum rules at
http://www.woot.com/WhatIsWoot.aspx#q26. Every single one is in full
effect. Users who persist in breaking the rules, even the
"minor" ones, will be banned.

We'll be implementing some other ways to make the forums a
more valuable community meeting place, but first we have to pick up the litter
and chase off the muggers. If you have any other suggestions on how we can
improve our forums, please let us know in this discussion, or use the form at http://www.woot.com/WriteUs.aspx.

If you’ve stayed away from the forums before, give them
another try. If you’ve been here all along, enjoy the new low-noise Woot
forums!

Spleen

I applaud your efforts. I have visted your forums less and less of late (while still remaining a loyal customer). Your wise decision to crack down on the idiots will undoubtedly bring me back to read substantive comments.

It's often a difficult line, deciding how much control to exert over a "public forum," but the guidelines you stated above seem just right.

dave bug

While the Everything Else (and other) forums are under these same rules, they will not be under the same level of scrutiny as the product threads.

Essentially, we're saying people will probably get away with a little more stuff over there, but we hang out there, too, so we may occasionally do a bit of pruning. And if jerks move in and start to ruin all our fun, we reserve the right to punch them. Or at least ban their accounts.

Glad to see everyone's pretty much on board with us here. Hopefully we'll end up getting known for having an insightful, cool community and attract smart people from all around to come in and tell us why our products suck.

kz1o

My favorite part of the US Constitution are the first five words in the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law."

Freedom of speech is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, but it only says that "Congress shall make no law respecting ... abridging the freedom of speech." It refers to government limitations on speech, and has nothing to do with what the rest of us want (or don't want) to hear. In fact, 'Congress shall make no law regarding who you kick off of your blog.' (I made up that part, but it is consistent).

BRAVO to you for getting rid of the dumb stuff, and for all the right reasons.

NCFatboy

chrisaroz

Well you just put peteroman out of business... well done. You've done well updating everything with 2.0 (I hardly ever hear someone say how much they hate brocooli and carrots anymore) and the improvements with the forums (particularly wootbot) are fantastic. Keep it up!!!

Binaural

Well you just put peteroman out of business... well done. You've done well updating everything with 2.0 (I hardly ever hear someone say how much they hate brocooli and carrots anymore) and the improvements with the forums (particularly wootbot) are fantastic. Keep it up!!!

I hesitate to go off topic (might get banned), but how are the skins coming along? I heard that at some point we would be able to choose different color schemes?

Oh, and I don't actually think Pete will go anywhere for awhile. If he stopped posting now, it would just prove that he was only here to spam, not be a part of the community like he claims to be.

cruzer

Glad to see everyone's pretty much on board with us here. Hopefully we'll end up getting known for having an insightful, cool community and attract smart people from all around to come in and tell us why our products suck.

I disagree with this statement. If people would look around, this forum is already a cool, attractive, and insightful.

There is just some people that aren't quite up to date on internet forums

I hope I can be considered as part of that cool, insightful and attractive community.

Oh, and I'm generally opposed to change, and here most people are for the change, so I'm gonna go against the flow and say that I don't like the changes. Seriously. What do you say to that?

Mydogkickzass

While the Everything Else (and other) forums are under these same rules, they will not be under the same level of scrutiny as the product threads.

Essentially, we're saying people will probably get away with a little more stuff over there, but we hang out there, too, so we may occasionally do a bit of pruning. And if jerks move in and start to ruin all our fun, we reserve the right to punch them. Or at least ban their accounts.

Glad to see everyone's pretty much on board with us here. Hopefully we'll end up getting known for having an insightful, cool community and attract smart people from all around to come in and tell us why our products suck.

That sounds fair enough
but half the fun of the post whore thread
is the pissing contests Pete and Cruzer have
awww, good times

kirsie

Firebert

Hurray! My visits to the forums have dropped off considerably. The "First Pagers" at times took up three pages before any content related to the item was posted.

I applaud Woot! for finally making a stand. I look forward to browsing 2-3 pages of content rather than 5-10 pages of mindless nothing.

Wow, I found someone with an extra woot! t-shirt (they got it in a Bag-O-Crap) who is willing to give it up, AND the forums are getting cleaned up in one day. This is my lucky woot! day. Maybe I should stay up till midnight, you know... just in case.

sfv

I used to read every forum but gave up long ago. Too many people talking to themselves and telling us why they didn't want, or already had, or couldn't afford the item that sold out in 16 minutes anyway. If you don't want or need it, why tell us? Go to sleep.

I still checked the item every midnight, but just couldn't wade through all the self serving junk posts. I couldn't believe you allowed them. Thanks for doing what is right for the rest of us and for the site.

cruzer

oh oh...now that I think about this (not that I was really against it in the first place), ya'll are gonna need some help controlling all these posts....I know you have a few volunteers for being mods here....come on, think about it, you know you want some more mods

dzlux

I gave up trying to say much of value after a month or so on the sight, since my posts were lost in the sea of "Bone of Contention!!!" posts, and inevitably, somebody with a "FIRST POST!" would edit their post to make some random comment followed by a commentary added 10 minutes later...

Shawn4168

Props to Woot for finally putting your foot (s?) down. I think it's great that I don't have to sift through hundreds of idiotic messages to find something actually worth reading. However, I'm not sure how I feel about not being allowed to post referral links. I mean, I guess that you guys have a business to run, and you'd rather not have your website be used to advertise for competitors, but what's the harm in us (your oh-so-loyal customers) trying to sucker people into doing referrals for us so that we can get a free iPod?

But I totally understand if you want to keep the rules just the way that they are.

dreamaster

Joel The Great

Thank goodness, I used to peruse the forumns, espeically for the product at woothand, but I kept getting annoyed having to surf through the first 3 pages of first posts and this woot sucks, and why'd I stay up for this. It's obvious that not everyone is going to like the product on hand, but the majority of the products do sell out...so yeah.

jack n coke

obob

it's been over twelve hours now to judge from the current woot, and I have to say it's not quite enough. (and not quiet enough)

I can tell that a few were removed, but there are still plenty of posts on the first page which say nothing at all about the current item.
I'll agree that

umm...no thanks...

can be considered a mild negative product review,
but

Repeat..............................BAG OF CRAP COMING SOON?

is a complete waste of the valuable time of numerous people trying to read the forum.

And

woot

(plus signature) ... from someone who should know better, that's just pushing the envelope to see how much it gives. Please, from here on out, not that much. (or I suppose that one-word posting could be a subtle request to have the post removed, now that we never get to delete our own any more)

In my opinion, the key question every moderator needs to ask themselves in order to decide whether to delete a post is:

Does this add value to the experience of a potential customer trying to make an immediate buying decision about this specific item?

I will admit, though, that there is at least one type of audience member who may have a positive appreciation for the noise. But then you have to ask yourself Do we want to sell foot-switches, cubicle doors, and light-up keyboards, or do we want to sell home theater systems, quality appliances, and cutting edge electronics?

CardinalGoldstein

Judging from last nite's woot offering, I see that a post consisting of "woot!" was deleted, but one that says "woot" (without the exclamation point) remains. I think we have found where the company draws the line.

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